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1. A review of the various suggestions about the date of 3 Macc can be found
in both Croy (pp. xi–xiii) and Modrzejewski (pp. 118–23). For their own opin-
ions see below.
2. To show the wide scholarly interest in this subject, I refer to the following
recent monographs: John M. G. Barclay, Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora (Edin-
burgh, 1996); Margaret H. Williams, The Jews among the Greeks and Romans (Balti-
more, Md., 1998); Erich S. Gruen, Diaspora (Cambridge Mass, 2002; Hebrew
translation 2004); and part of the immense literature on the subject of Helleniza-
tion in general and of the Jews in particular can be found in the bibliographies
there. Also two annotated translations of 3 Macc appeared in recent years in
collections of the Apocrypha. One in Italian (A. Passoni Dell’Acqua in Apocrifi
dell’Antico Testamento, IV, ed. P. Sacchi [Brescia, 2000], 573–664 and the other in
Polish (M. Wojciechchowski in Apokryfy z Biblii greckiej [Varsovie, 2001], 24–96
[non vidi]). Both are cited and referred to in Modrzejewski’s book. It may be
stated also that Modrzejewski’s bibliography is much more European (it includes,
besides English, publications in French, German, and Italian) whereas Croy’s is
predominantly in English.
3 MACCABEES—RAPPAPORT 553
2001, that mention the Jewish politeuma there, a key to understanding the
status of Jews and the Jewish communities in Egypt (the xõra) and in
Alexandria (pp. 76–82). His discussion on this subject may terminate the
argument about the definition of the politeumata. It should be clarified that
the argument about this question is not about the right of the Jews to live
according to their ancestral laws but about the significance of defining a
Jewish community politeuma for its rights and conduct. The use of this
term in the Herakleopolis papyri does not confirm the idea that being
called politeuma made a Jewish community equal to the Hellenistic polis
(primarily Alexandria), and Modrzejewski’s. explanation can be taken as
definitive.3
Modrzejewski makes several interesting points in his discussion. One
concerns the position of the priests (kohanim) in Jewish society who,
according to Modrzejewski, belonged to the Jewish elite and religious
leadership of Egyptian Jewry (pp. 90–93). As for the purpose of 3 Macc,
Modrzejewski suggests that the author, being himself a ‘‘fundamentalist,’’
intended to counterbalance the dedication and bravery of the Maccabean
leadership in Judaea to their ancestral religion with the story of the dedi-
cation of the Jews of the Egyptian Diaspora to their religious heritage—
even ready to endanger their very lives for it (p. 123).
Detailed scrutiny of the royal Ptolemaic legal system reveals that the
measures that the king took against the Jews were not arbitrary inven-
tions of the author of 3 Macc but conform to the procedures of the legal
system customary in Ptolemaic Egypt. It may be concluded then that the
author of 3 Macc knew this system well and may have been a government
official with some expertise in legal procedures. An example for this sup-
position, which also highlights the difference between the two books
under discussion, is their treatment of the word apotumpanismos (3 Macc
3.27). For Croy it means ‘‘torture’’ and in his commentary he stresses the
gravity of the punishment that threatens those who will dare to give shel-
ter to Jews, the intensification of the pathos in the sentence, and a discus-
sion about familial solidarity (p. 71). In Modrzejewski’s introduction the
term is explained within the framework of Ptolemaic jurisdiction. It is a
punishment by burning, preserved for arsonists, or may refer to another
punishment that resembles the Roman crucifixion and was preserved for
traitors. (This discussion covers pp. 64–67 and we skip the unpleasant
details and its history.) The difference in the treatment of this term by
14. Original French edition: Les Juifs d’Egypte: De Ramsès II à Hadrien (Paris,
1991).
15. Moses Hadas, The Third and Fourth Books of Maccabees (New York, 1953)
(3 Macc on pp. ix–85). I omit mention of other translations and shorter commen-
taries in collections of intertestamental literature that can be found in the bibliog-
raphies of Croy and Modrzejewski
16. The resemblance between the Philopator and the Heliodorus affairs is
much greater than that between either one of them and that of Antiochus IV.
Neither Philopator nor Heliodorus came to rob the Temple. Heliodorus rather
demanded an inspection of the accounts of the Temple’s finances so as to confis-
cate what he deemed to belong to the royal treasury (2 Macc 3.13–14). See U.
Rappaport, ‘‘Did Heliodoros Try to Rob the Treasures of the Jerusalem Tem-
ple?’’ (forthcoming).